Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to methods and systems for updating firmware in the hardware components of a server.
Background of the Related Art
A data center is a facility where computer equipment and related infrastructure are consolidated for centralized operation and management. Computer equipment may be interconnected in a datacenter to produce large, powerful computer systems that are capable of storing and processing large amounts of data for entities such as large corporations, web hosting services, and Internet search engines. A data center may house any number of racks, each capable of holding a large number of servers and supporting equipment, such as switches, power supplies, network communications interfaces, environmental controls, and security devices. Servers and supporting equipment are typically housed in rack-mounted, multi-server enclosures (e.g. a multi-blade chassis) and arranged in a high-density configuration. As many servers and rack-mounted enclosures as needed may be interconnected to produce a system having the desired performance.
Individuals and businesses want their computer applications to experience zero downtime to avoid impacts to their busy schedules, business objectives and customer demands. This applies pressure to keep service windows small, such that needed maintenance and updates are often delayed as much as possible. For example, a server or cluster of servers may continue running with a firmware version that has long been out of date. A major reason for not updating firmware is that the task of updating firmware typically takes a significant period of time to complete and then may require a server restart. Unfortunately, continuing to run the old firmware means that system reliability declines over time as critical fixes don't get applied. This type of decline in reliability is an even a particular concern for complex scaled systems where critical fixes are frequently released. Taking a complex scaled system offline for firmware updates can result in a complete interruption of service, since it is cost prohibitive to install a redundant scaled system for this purpose.